look how tiny-dorable!

Rosemary's foster farmer took this picture of her. Is she not the most adorable calf you have ever seen? (Sorry, Lucky).

a better deal than a treasury bond!

My awesome farm property is really coming together. The pastures are getting fenced, the milk house plans were okayed by the carpenter and I even have a cow or two. But one of the biggest challenges for new farmers is obtaining lines of credit for capital expenses. Because you are a new farmer and because farming is inherently a risky endeavor (being dependent on weather and nature and all) banks and even the Farm Service Agency are reluctant to lend you money.

So I wanted to put it out into internet land that I'm accepting loans from the general public. They can be for any amount. I will repay all money lent to me in 3 years plus you get 10% of the value that you loan me each year in farm products. So, for example, if you lent me 100 dollars, you would get 10 dollars in farm products each year until I paid you back. Don't live in VT? I can send you goodies in the mail!

feel free to email me at ivy at smirx dot com to find out more about how you can earn my undying gratitude.

how very meta

Today, as I was cleaning the mangers out, "The Splendid Table" came on the radio. I don't often listen to this show because I think it can be a little bit annoying and my co-worker thinks it's really annoying. But the host was going to interview Anthony Bourdain so I figured I'd hear what he had to say. Then, she had Gordon Edwards on to talk about being a punk turned cheese monger in San Francisco, and I am always interested in anyone who is a punk turned anything. So, I stayed tuned for that also. And he started talking about our farm! On the radio! While I was cleaning the barn! It was very exciting. You, too, can share in my fleeting self-referential-ness by listening here: http://splendidtable.publicradio.org/listings/110709/ (scroll down to the Gordon Edwards link if you don't want to hear the whole show, although they do talk about mint dressings and sausage).

second PSA of the day!

As I strike out into the world of farming for myself, I come up again and again against fucking sexist bullshit that makes me wanna puke. There are the people I am talking to about business matters who say, "So, you are a girl farmer, huh?" And I want to say something like "Well ... in the sense that most dairy cows are girls, um, yeah. Not human girls though, I think that's probably illegal." Or the very nice man from the extension office I was speaking to about land acquisition who, when I asked what advice he had for landless upstart farmers he said "Find someone with a farm and marry him." Been there. Done that.

*Sigh*

And then there are the truly clueless, like the young man I went to see on Friday. He had some heifers for sale and I drove entirely too far to go look at them. And the dude was a total jackass to me, sexually harassing me, asking me rude questions and telling me about his genitals. This only went on for as long as it took for me to walk back to my car and get in and say "Well, thank you, bye!" and he said "I hope I didn't offend you! did I?" And I said, "Well, would you have said those same things to a man who came to look at your heifers?" "No, that's gross," he said. "Exactly."

So look, by the time you are on the receiving end of that sort of crap, I feel like the chances of changing anyone's perception are pretty slim. But if, maybe, your friend is telling you a story that you recognize as sexist and offensive, you could, you know, mention that to him (or her I guess should the case arise). Or if you notice your teenage child exhibiting behaviour that is way out of line, people he's gonna interact with when he's a grownup would totally appreciate you smacking him now so that we don't have to spend our entire trip home fantasizing about running him over with a tractor later.

today's farming PSA

While I have, in my opinion, a fairly standard body, one without any missing parts or things that work differently than most bodies do, I have dealt with body image issues for almost my whole life. When I was a teenager I decided my hobby would be seeing how little I could eat without dying. And then, once I decided that had gotten old and I resumed eating, I still felt that I was just stuck in this body that was not very attractive or capable. I seldom looked at myself in the mirror and usually felt amazed when anyone thought I was attractive.

I never consciously felt the need to acquiesce to cultural beauty standards, but somehow I had absorbed them anyway and they shaped how I felt about myself for the first 25 years of my life.

But when I started farming I started to appreciate my body for it's capabilities, rather than to dislike it for the fact that my thighs touched each other and that my boobs don't look like Miley Cyrus'. I was amazed when I found my body to be capable of lifting 80 pounds, capable of convincing a giant animal to take some medicine, capable of driving a tractor or a team of horses (and seldom knocking the mirrors off my car), and capable of working for 11 hours straight.

Farming has really helped me to see my body as beautiful and as something I can be proud of, a feeling that has been so elusive to me my whole life. So thanks, cows, I think you are all beautiful as well!